I, Said the Spy

‘You’re the boss.’

On East 42nd Street Danzer’s cab slowed down. Anderson could see Danzer’s head craned to one side as though he were looking for something – or someone.

‘Okay, any minute now,’ Anderson said. Unnecessarily, because Miller was hunched against the door, fingers on the handle. Miller’s nervousness was infectious; Anderson found that his fists were bunched so tightly that his knuckles gleamed white. ‘Don’t jump, just pay the driver and get out. Take your time.’

‘Okay, okay.’

Danzer’s cab stopped at an intersection while pedestrians, heads bowed into the unseasonal and treacherous cold, flooded across the avenue.

Then it took off again, hugging the kerb. They passed the New York Daily News building with the huge globe of the world in the window. Danzer’s driver was looking behind him, gesticulating with one hand. Anderson imagined what he was saying – ‘Why don’t you get out and walk? Time’s money, buddy ….’ Odd how your mind chanced on any trivia when you were tensed up. He noticed a gaunt man wearing only check shirt and jeans despite the cold, a poodle trailing a lead and sniffing ankles ….

Danzer’s taxi stopped.

‘You know where to find me?’ Anderson asked, and Miller said: ‘Sure I know, you told me a dozen times already.’

Danzer was standing on the sidewalk looking around him as his cab departed at speed. He took a notebook from the pocket of his coat, consulted it and peered down the street in the direction of the East River and the United Nations. His suitcase was between his legs but he still held onto the shabby briefcase.

Miller climbed out of the cab onto the sidewalk, timing it well because at that moment Danzer turned and began to walk swiftly in the opposite direction like a man who has suddenly made a decision.

Miller spat out his gum and began to follow.

Anderson rapped on the partition again and the taxi began to edge along the kerb. It was easy enough to keep Danzer in sight: it was Miller the chameleon who kept disappearing.

Once or twice Danzer glanced behind him, saw nothing suspicious and hurried on. Then he disappeared.

Anderson blinked and searched for Miller. There he was, entering a hotel in between First and Second Avenues. Anderson knew it vaguely: it had an English-style pub at the back.

The driver stopped.

Thirty seconds later Danzer emerged without his briefcase. He turned sharply and began to walk towards the taxi. Anderson slid down low in the seat, face averted from the sidewalk.

Danzer hurried past, almost running, like a man escaping from a crime.

The driver turned and looked at Anderson questioningly. Anderson shook his head. There was no point: the briefcase had just emerged from the hotel – in the hands of a balding man wearing a cheap grey topcoat, wide-bottomed trousers and crepe-soled brown shoes.

Anderson kept his eyes on the briefcase as it swung down the street. Miller emerged from the hotel, glanced briefly in Anderson’s direction, nodded almost imperceptibly and began to follow the newcomer.

A Russian? Anderson placed the tips of his fingers together in a prayer-like gesture. Then he lost sight of Miller and his quarry. The next time he saw them they were crossing the bridge spanning 42nd Street.

This time the driver slid open the partition. ‘What do you want me to do, Mr Anderson?’ His voice was soft and cultured, a contradiction of his appearance.

‘Take me home,’ Anderson said.

All he could do now was wait.

* * *

The apartment was furnished with impeccable taste.

But was his taste just a little too studied? Anderson wondered in those transient moments of self-doubt that assailed him from time to time.

Olive green, wall-to-wall carpet covered the floor of the living room; the white-leather Chesterfield and easy chairs were low-slung – a little too low for Anderson’s long legs; the television peered from fitted bookshelves; abstracts – some bought in Greenwich Village and some painted by a long-ago girl-friend – hung on the walls; in one corner, approached by a zebra-skin lying on the olive-green carpet, stood a small jungle of poinsettias, rubber plants and ferns. The bedroom was all white, the bathroom blue-tiled with a sunken bath, the kitchen shone with stainless steel fittings.

The rent was more than he could reasonably afford and, during those fleeting moments of uncertainty, Anderson wondered whether it was all worth it because, in the eyes of some of his guests, he could discern the patronising appraisal of those who had inherited rather than learned impeccable taste.

To hell with them, Anderson thought, as he took off his raincoat and tossed his hat onto a glass-topped table. But now, as he waited for the telephone to ring, the self-doubt was persistent. It even extended to his clothes – brown Gucci shoes, immaculate fawn suit with vest, across which was looped a gold chain linking a gold watch with a gold cigar-cutter tucked in the pockets. A black dude! The sort of gear affected by a prize-fighter who had punched his way out of Harlem.

Anderson consulted the gold watch, 11 a.m. It would be at least half an hour before Miller called. Anderson decided to take a hot shower to force the cold from his bones – and the questions from his mind.

The water sluiced down over his ebony frame, machine-gunned his powerful shoulders. He turned the handle another degree so that the water ran hotter and steam enveloped him. Ah … the doubts dispersed. The man with the briefcase was a Russian; any minute now Miller would call and confirm his suspicions; confirm the decision of the hierarchy of the CIA – decision taken after considerable debate – to give Owen Anderson one of the key jobs assigned by the Company. Bilderberg.

The telephone shrilled in the living-room.

Anderson stepped out of the bath and padded swiftly across the carpet, shedding droplets of water as he went.

‘Hallo, is that you, Owen?’

‘Sure it’s me.’ The anticipation subsided as he heard the girl’s voice; adrenalin stopped flowing in his veins.

‘Are you free tonight?’

Standing naked and dripping, Anderson shook his head at the cream receiver in his hand. ‘’Fraid not, honey.’ She was a black model, tall, fine-boned and small-breasted.

A sigh at the other end of the line. ‘Are you going cold on me, Owen?’

‘I’ve got work to do, honey.’ She knew he was some kind of policeman; probably thought that, with his life style, he was a corrupt one. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Yeah, I’ll bet. There’s a party in the Village ….’

‘Some other time,’ Anderson said. Maybe Miller was trying to reach him now.

‘What sort of work, Owen?’

‘The usual sort.’

‘I won’t be going to that party alone.’

‘Have a ball,’ Anderson said. ‘I’ll call you.’ He replaced the receiver in its cradle.

He put on a white towelling robe and stood at the window watching the sleet pass by on its way to the street, straddling Lexington and Park, fifteen storeys below.

He prowled the apartment. Waiting, waiting. The silent telephone dominated the room. He picked up the New York Times and scanned the front page. Spaceshots, political jockeying for the presidential election next year; Nixon on Vietnam, Senator George McGovern on Vietnam.

Anderson threw aside the newspaper, stripped off his robe and went into his daily work-out routine. Fifty press-ups, fifty sit-ups.

The phone rang when he was half way up to the forty-ninth press-up. He collapsed on the carpet and reached for the receiver.

The head porter said: ‘Is that you, Mr Anderson?’